[Support] Plex Media Server - Official

[eddie_bear]

19 hours ago, mgutt said:

Install the Intel GPU Top Plugin.

 

Then edit the Plex Container, scroll to the bottom, Add device and set both path to /dev/dri

 

I thought you already did those steps. 😅

 

Yes I did pass the /dev/dri through following your suggestion. Now I can clearly see the iGPU detected by Plex. I found the hardware acceleration is working only when I disable the "Use hardware-accelerated video encoding". Once I enable it, the hardware acceleration is not working anymore (no more [hw] sign in the video snapshot). However if we disable "Use hardware-accelerated video encoding" to trigger the hardware acceleration, the HEVC (h.256) 4K video is not playing well. 

Is the option "Use hardware-accelerated video encoding" required for the HEVC video to be transcoded by GPU? 

[eddie_bear]

17 hours ago, JonathanM said:

Plex pass?

https://support.plex.tv/articles/115002178853-using-hardware-accelerated-streaming/

Yes I bought the Plex pass membership. The hardware acceleration is working when I turn off "Use hardware-accelerated video encoding". However the HEVC 4K video is still unable to be played smoothly. 

[mgutt]

1 hour ago, eddie_bear said:

I found the hardware acceleration is working only when I disable the "Use hardware-accelerated video encoding".

Does not really make sense.

 

1 hour ago, eddie_bear said:

However the HEVC 4K video is still unable to be played smoothly. 

Does HDR Tone Mapping influence anything? Are there any subtitles active like forced PGS subtitles? 4K Transcoding with PGS Subtitle burn-in is endboss for any GPU. The best option is to use text-based subtitles like SRT.

[eddie_bear]

1 hour ago, mgutt said:

Does not really make sense.

 

Does HDR Tone Mapping influence anything? Are there any subtitles active like forced PGS subtitles? 4K Transcoding with PGS Subtitle burn-in is endboss for any GPU. The best option is to use text-based subtitles like SRT.

Thanks for the advice. 

HDR tone mapping is disable

Subtitle is none. 

 

So I would like to give all the details in once:

1. QNAP TS464 with Intel Celeron N5095

2. Unraid 6.11.5 (which I believe is the latest one)

3. Plex 1.32.5.7349 (which I believe is also up to date) in docker. 

4. Plex premium member already

5. Hardware acceleration is enable

6. JasperLake [UHD Graphics] is chosen as the hardware transcoding device, which indicates Plex can recognize the iGPU

7. HDR tone mapping is disable

8. All video I tested without any subtitle enable

9. When playing the movie (no matter 4K or 1080P), the activity dashboard shows the [hw] in video codec which indicates the hardware acceleration is enable as configured. 

 

Here is my test results

1. If I turn on "Use hardware-accelerated video encoding" and play movie again, the [hw] is disappear in activity dashboard which indicates the hardware acceleration is disable. Not sure why it has to be disabled to have the hw acceleration?

2. When I tested with the hevc h.265 4K movie, even with the hardware acceleration enable, every 20 seconds the movie will be frozen for another 20 seconds. At the activity dashboard I can see it shows buffering. 

3. In the same test as above, even I set the transcode to convert to 1080P 20Mbps, or 12Mbps even 8Mbps, it does not make any difference, still buffering every 20 seconds. 

4. When I tested with the 1080P movie, with the hardware acceleration enable, the buffering issue is not there anymore. The move can be played smoothly. So is the Celeron N5095 is not capable for 4K HEVC decode?

5. Did a lot of Google search, most test shows N5095 should be able to handle 4K HEVC movie without any issue. 

 

Thanks again for your support. 

[mgutt]

9 hours ago, eddie_bear said:

So is the Celeron N5095 is not capable for 4K HEVC decode?

5. Did a lot of Google search, most test shows N5095 should be able to handle 4K HEVC movie without any issue. 

I would contradict. This user says it does not transcode 4K with HDR tone mapping:

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/PleX/comments/r1g3wl/plex_hardware_transcoding_issue_with_pms_on_intel/

Quote

I used the Sony Swordsmith HDR 4K video as a demo, and it does fine on 4K to 1080p and okay on 4K to 720p (with Ultra Fast transcoding preset), but it couldn't do the tone mapping at the same time in either case.

 

A different user confirmed:

Quote

I finally got a beelink u59 with this same N5095 processor, and I've been able to have 3 4k transcodings at the same time. It's true that HDR tone-mapping doesn't work because Plex is unable to use the GPU, so it tries to do all the transcoding with the CPU when this setting is enabled. My impression is that it should be able to support HDR tone-mapping if it was able to use the GPU, so hopefully, in the future it will be able to do it.

 

His conclusion was a driver issue, but later he wrote this:

Quote

I switched to a minipc with a Jasper Lake n6005 (which supposedly has twice the number of EUs but I think it has the same encoding performance as the n5059) and it seems that it can easily transcode 2 4k->1080p@20mbps with OpenCL tone-mapping and the 'very fast' preset with Jellyfin

 

I know you said you disabled Tone Mapping. But its absolutely useless to transcode 4K without Tone Mapping as all colors would be washed out. Nobody would watch a movie in this quality. So its not worth the effort. The N5095 is too weak for 4K transcoding.

 

9 hours ago, eddie_bear said:

1. If I turn on "Use hardware-accelerated video encoding" and play movie again, the [hw] is disappear in activity dashboard which indicates the hardware acceleration is disable. Not sure why it has to be disabled to have the hw acceleration?

Something seems to be broken with your Plex installation / configuration. This is not normal.

[xokia]

New user to unraid. I have been using proxmox and had plex-server setup on unbuntu on a LXC. That all worked fine except proxmox was unstable using a I9 13900 CPU. Always crashed when things went Idle.

So I am trying out unraid. So far so good. I got plex-server installed and iGPU passthrough enabled. I have it setup to transcode using RAM. HW transcode seems to work as expected.

 

However I am seeing some odd behavior with the plex-server dashboard. If I direct play a movie nothing shows up in the dashboard as being played. If I force a transcode by selecting a lower quality video after the movie starts then the movie shows up in the dashboard. Any Ideas?

Clearly the video is streaming but nothing shows up.

 

Edited September 12, 2023 by xokia

[xokia]

16 hours ago, eddie_bear said:

 

4. When I tested with the 1080P movie, with the hardware acceleration enable, the buffering issue is not there anymore. The move can be played smoothly. So is the Celeron N5095 is not capable for 4K HEVC decode?

 

 

When you are playing the movie what is your CPU doing? If you are not HW transcoding I would expect your CPU to be pegged 100%.

 

Also if you go into your dashboard when you are playing the movie does it say direct play? Or does it show it converting it to a different format?

[eddie_bear]

15 hours ago, mgutt said:

I would contradict. This user says it does not transcode 4K with HDR tone mapping:

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/PleX/comments/r1g3wl/plex_hardware_transcoding_issue_with_pms_on_intel/

 

A different user confirmed:

 

His conclusion was a driver issue, but later he wrote this:

 

I know you said you disabled Tone Mapping. But its absolutely useless to transcode 4K without Tone Mapping as all colors would be washed out. Nobody would watch a movie in this quality. So its not worth the effort. The N5095 is too weak for 4K transcoding.

 

Something seems to be broken with your Plex installation / configuration. This is not normal.

Thanks for your explanation. I think the N5095 is not as powerful as I expect. Thanks again.

[eddie_bear]

7 hours ago, xokia said:

 

When you are playing the movie what is your CPU doing? If you are not HW transcoding I would expect your CPU to be pegged 100%.

 

Also if you go into your dashboard when you are playing the movie does it say direct play? Or does it show it converting it to a different format?

Yes I am quite sure it is doing HW transcoding as I can see the sign [hw] in the dashboard. However the CPU still hike to 90-100% constantly. I guess it is because iGPU is trying to help the CPU but not that much. 

 

It is not shown direct play. It shows 4K to 1080P transcode with [hw] as the indication that iGPU is involved. 

[xokia]

On 9/11/2023 at 4:50 AM, eddie_bear said:

Yes I am quite sure it is doing HW transcoding as I can see the sign [hw] in the dashboard. However the CPU still hike to 90-100% constantly. I guess it is because iGPU is trying to help the CPU but not that much. 

 

It is not shown direct play. It shows 4K to 1080P transcode with [hw] as the indication that iGPU is involved. 

I had similar problems

 

Issue was:
     1. Needed latest driver (Intel-GPU-TOP) which does not appear in driver directory.
     2. Had a corrupted test file.

[cmacsound]

Hello community! 

 

Not sure why I'm getting 500 Internal Server errors on my Plex Media Server (Official) all of a sudden. I can't access the GUI and I fear that my database is corrupted. What can I do to troubleshoot?

 

Really appreciate the help. Thank you!! 

[mgutt]

11 minutes ago, cmacsound said:

I'm getting 500 Internal Server

While accessing the local IP of Plex or do you have a domain / reverse proxy in front of your Plex container?

[cmacsound]

Hmm, when I try accessing server.local.ip.address:32400/web I'm getting a 404 error... 

 

And no, I haven't set up any domains or reverse proxies

Edited September 15, 2023 by cmacsound

[mgutt]

Check the container logs

 

[cmacsound]

Thank you for your help! Here is my log (attached)

 

 

Plex Log.txt

[cmacsound]

Server errors started a little while ago but were fixed after replacing cable on cache2. Please see this thread for context:

 

 

I'm stumped here since other dockers work fine, and the array is performing as expected after the IO error was fixed after replacing a cache drive cable as described in the above thread. 

 

I've checked settings, reclaimed, and have database and preferences backups. I'd appreciate any advice or areas to try before I start fresh and try to restore and salvage.

 

Thank you in advance! 

 

 

Edited September 19, 2023 by cmacsound
clarifying context

[itsjustdibella]

I want to state, I am a complete noob. My buddy set up my unRAID server for me for my Plex media server to use sonarr and radarr. He is unavailable, but I got a notice that the PMS database is corrupted. I found some support here https://reddit.com/r/PleX/s/k6dKiDXszP I tried to follow the instructions to stop the db using console but it didn't work. I then went to download the PlexDBrepair program that is supposed to make this much easier. Yet for me it is not. I have no idea how to install it into the docker container from my computer. Just to be clear I was able to run a backup and have that secure, at least that part is done.  I did put it on the server in one of my accessible shares, but I have no idea how to duo a single other thing to fix the corrupted database. Can someone please help me? Thanks in advance from this complete noob to all of you!

[ConnerVT]

 

[itsjustdibella]

I am trying to follow this and I believe I typed everything in write because the 8 times I did before I just got an error and now I simply have a > after trying t run the PRAGMA integrate check. So I thought it was working to check it and it has been 8 hours.It doesn't matter what I do though. I have skipped ahead and tried to just dumpy the DB and I still just get that same >. Soo at this point I get that the DB is fried...but what do I do?   
On another note I was able to get the PlexDBRepair-1.0.12.tar program into the docker Plex library but I have no idea how to do anymore.
Any thoughts on all this??

P.S. does what I am trying to do in following this video matter if the appdata is stored on cache?

Edited September 25, 2023 by itsjustdibella

[xokia]

I added HD homerun to Plex. Wondering folks know where the recordings get saved to and if they can be moved?

[Hoopster]

31 minutes ago, xokia said:

I added HD homerun to Plex. Wondering folks know where the recordings get saved to and if they can be moved?

They are saved to whatever the Plex Library location is for TV Shows.  Sure you can move them after they are recorded.

Edited October 13, 2023 by Hoopster

[ryankenn]

On 6/22/2023 at 10:23 PM, ryankenn said:

I had my server go down tonight (hard down) as the power was out and I wasn't home so the battery backup ran out of juice.  On restart because everything was off I updated Unraid to 6.12.1, and updated the Plex docker while I was at it.

 

Now I cannot access Plex from anything.  In the console, when I click the icon, normally the top option is WebUI and it lauches the app on my laptop, no it just says >_ console and lauches a blank window with a number sign.  No devices can access the server.

 

In the tower is says started, but at this point it say uptime is 55 mins (unhealthy).  I don't know if it has to do some work first before its accessible, I do have over 7TB in the folders it accesses.  But I am pretty certain in the past it just came up almost instantly and was usable right away.

 

I know the files are there as I can see the folders through remote desktop and play the files.  

 

Any tips are welcome, thanks.

 

**Aside**, in the past I just rebooted the server and it would work.  This time it asked for a USER/Pass.  When I accessed it from my laptop I had to set a password to get the GUI up, default was root and I had to set a password.  I am not sure I ever had that before, don't know if its just a function of this latest update or not.

 

dhcplog.txt 824 B · 0 downloads docker.txt 793 B · 0 downloads syslog.txt 118.42 kB · 0 downloads Docker Log Plex.txt 4.27 kB · 1 download

This has happened again.  Frankly I have no idea how I got it back up and running but the battery in my backup must be failing.  On restart, Plex is unhealthy and unusable.  I feel like last time I removed the app and reinstalled and that fixed it but there must be something else.  So frustrating this Docker just can't see to restart itself anymore.  I never had this issue previously. 

 

Seems like config is looking at an Empty Preferences XML.  I have two folders that look very similar, one is PlexMediaServer and one is Plex-Media-Server.  Both inside the library have the same setup, and empty Preference XML files.  I feel like I changed a path or deleted something last time to get this to work. 

 

Thoughts?

 

 

Edited October 26, 2023 by ryankenn

[mgutt]

3 hours ago, ryankenn said:

This has happened again

And still nothing learned. Maybe you should create backups of appdata?!

 

3 hours ago, ryankenn said:

but the battery in my backup must be failing

Maybe you should test this?! Maybe you should set the shutdown time earlier?!

 

3 hours ago, ryankenn said:

Seems like config is looking at an Empty Preferences XML

A crashing computer can kill random data. This shouldn't be surprising. What do you expect? Plex can't magically restore deleted data.

 

3 hours ago, ryankenn said:

I have two folders that look very similar, one is PlexMediaServer and one is Plex-Media-Server.  Both inside the library have the same setup, and empty Preference XML files. 

Maybe you should install Plex correctly by removing old data first?! And of course check your path. I mean you are currently using both at the same time.

[xokia]

is 1.32.6.7557 safe to update too? They had the fiasco that broke HW transcoding previously. Afraid to update now.

[Shadowwrath5]

I made a video to illustrate what is going on with a basic new plex install for me: Plex Issues - Media Shares Disappear After Refresh - YouTube

 

I install plex on unraid with basic settings. I set my media folder and transcode folder and name the server and that is it. I start the docker and using putty, Im accessing the localhost of my plex server. I did not insert a plex claim key.

 

This is where the video starts. Everything works as intended at first. Ive added media to my movies folder in another test and it shows up and I can even start playback. Everything works fine.. until I refresh the page. At that point, all my shares disappear, the share I was on says not authorized, and its advising me to download plex media server ignoring that Im literally on Plex media server.

Before I hit Refresh on the page, other devices can see the shares as well.

 

Ive tried the other repos with similar results as well. My other devices can see the shares before I hit refresh but the disappear as well after.

 

Ive also tried using the plex claim key in the initial setup. When I have the key in, im asked to sign in like normal except afterwards, I got the not authorized page instead of the normal server setup prompts. 

 

Each time I retry, I uninstall the docker and delete the app data folder so make sure its a fresh restart.

 

If anyone has any advice, I would really appreciate it. Ive been going through this for a week and its driving me insane.